The Wild Life

Or, as some would put it, the wildlife. This is the post where all the animal-related stories will get placed, so check back every so often.

Not long after the warm weather showed up, I noticed a baby garter snake in the grass near the deck. I know how DS feels about them, so I kept my mouth shut. One day, we were moving some wood and I got a splinter. Not a bad one, but in an annoying spot, so I went inside to remove it. I grabbed my tweezers and headed for the head of our bed, where the patio doors are. This is where there is the best daytime light. Now, there's about 18" between the head of our bed and the door, and I sidle in and push the bed away a bit to get some room. I'm about to sit down when my brain tells me there's something amiss. I guess I noticed out of the corner of my eye that something didn't look quite right.

I glance down, and stretched out peacefully in the sun, in the guide track of the patio door, with one languid loop hanging out, is a garter snake about 16" long. Inside. I head to the door and yell to DS to get in here now. On my way back, I grab a pair of glove and the BBQ tongs. I know that I am the one who will have to deal with this intruder; DS is simply too put out by snakes to be able to be of much help.

The way she tells it, she figured I had come upon a whole family of mice, as we were still working on evicting them all from the premises at the time. But when I passed their likely location and kept moving towards the LR, she figured Murphy the groundhog was on the back deck with all the kiddies in tow. As we approached the patio doors, she was able to see the deck was empty. 'What the heck was all the commotion about, then?' she wondered. Following my gaze, she spotted our guest. Simultaneously shrieking and jumping back about 5', she asked what we were going to do.

I suggested she get a pair of gloves and a long stick, just in case I missed. I explained my plan was to grab the protruding loop with the tongs and remove the reptile, to allow her to then unlock and open the patio door. I knew I had one chance to grasp it. If I missed, it would move and all hell would break loose. There was no telling how long it would take us to capture it then. DS got the gloves and a baseball bat the previous owner had left behind in the woodshed. She also moved her nightstand and dresser about 10 feet away from the site of operations.

I took a deep breath and grabbed. My aim was true, but the snake was pissed at having his nap interrupted. He was writhing at the end of my tongs and sticking out that tongue. I moved him to the side so DS could handle the door. She was so rattled by this situation that it took her four tries to get the door unlocked and open. Finally, I was out on the deck. With one mighty swing, and a perfectly-timed release, that snake travelled almost to the middle of the lake.

"You know, snakes can swim," DS pointed out. Damn. I didn't know that.